You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Sunday October 11, 1903
Chicago, Illinois - Colorado Labor Official Warns of Socialism and the W. F. of M.
W. H. McDonald, Colorado commissioner of labor, gave a lecture yesterday in Chicago wherein he warned the good citizens of Chicago about the dangers of the Western Labor Movement. Mr. McDonald claims that the Western Federation of Labor and the American Labor Union exist, not to promote trade unionism, but to advance socialism.
In Colorado and other Western states the labor movement has been diverted from its lawful purpose to the task of pushing the propaganda of Socialism.
We are left to wonder when the Socialist Party of America was made "unlawful." And we would like to point out to the Labor Commissioner that members of unions have the same rights as anyone else in any other organization to vote as they so please.
SOURCE The Inter Ocean (Chicago, Illinois)
-of October 11, 1903
Saturday October 11, 1913
Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan - Brother Joseph Minerich Dies in Hancock Hospital
Joseph Minerich, who was shot by a deputy on Wednesday, died in St Joseph's Hospital in Hancock Thursday night. Brother Minerich was a striking copper miner and a member of the Western Federation of Miners.
The strikers mourn their fallen Brother, but their resolve to continue the fight is unbroken. Support continues to arrive from all across the nation and from Canada. The Miner's Bulletin recently printed this letter from British Columbia:
Moyie, B.C.
Sept. 29, 1913
Dear Comrades,
It is a long way from British Columbia to Michigan but that in no way affects the grim determination of the working class in this western province of Canada to aid their brothers struggling for improved conditions in the far east and show the copper magnates that class-consciousness is not a mere lip expression.
J. C. Lowney of the Executive board, who has just come from the scene of activity, addressed the members of Kimberly local on Sunday and they moved to assess themselves one shifts's wages each month until the Michigan strike is won. Tonight (Tuesday the 29th) a visit was made to Moyie and the same spirit of solidarity was noticeable and the members followed the laudable example of their Kimberly fellow-workers.
The writer (J. W. Bennett) will continue the tour along through the mining camps of East Kootenay, B. C.
I will, if possible, write to you from time to time as I realize that the more the facts are circulated among the workers the more encouraged they become.Yours for the emancipation of the workers.
J. W. Bennett
emphasis added
SOURCES
Rebels on the Range -by Arthur W Thurner
MI, 1984
Miner's Bulletin -of Oct 9, 1913, No. 25
Photo: Many thanks to brand new Kossack, 1913 Strike, for providing this link to the Michigan Tech Archives. There are 17 pages of photos of the Michigan Copper Strike of 1913! Search with "1913 strike" or "copper strike." The photo above is of a banner carried by the strikers as they marched.
Friday October 11, 2013
For more on the Western Federation of Miners in British Columbia:
Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement 1899-1919 -by A. Ross McCormack
University of Toronto Press, 1991
http://books.google.com/books/about/Reformers_Rebels_and_Revolutionaries...
Chapter 3, p.35
"Militant Industrial Unionism and the first western rebellion"
Gives a pretty good account of the struggles of the hard-rock miners and the formation of the Western Federation of Miners in British Columbia.
And here's a great link: Constitution and by-laws of the Rossland Miners' Union No. 38, W.F. M. [i.e. Western Federation of Miners] adopted at Rossland, British Columbia, Oct. 22, 1896 and Nov. 23, 1898 (1898)
http://archive.org/stream/cihm_16042#page/n5/mode/2up
Solidarity Forever-Solidarity Singers
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